11 MAY 08: VALLEY SALVAGE MISSION
Think about it for a minute - would you want a well-known local personality to declare you "salvageable?" In front of the entire city? Especially when you've never spent one day in a rehab clinic?
Yet there was Mayor Jim Wetherington at a Friday news conference, describing Fire Chief Jeff Meyer as "still salvageable." It came as the mayor released a report on the.... uh.... well, WRBL's Jennifer Serda called it at 5:00 p.m. the "Zach Wages case." Those police lie detector tests and interviews were even more thorough than I expected....
Other reports correctly said it was the Zachary Allen investigation. An internal police report found Allen did have cocaine in his system, when he wrecked an EMS vehicle near Cross Country Plaza in late 2006 -- but it was only a trace amount. We will resist the temptation to say it was Kenneth Walker-sized.
Mayor Wetherington says the police report found NO evidence that Zachary Allen received special treatment from the Columbus Fire Department, because he's the son of Councilor Gary Allen. Be watching this week's Columbus Council meeting, when Bill Madison claims the special treatment had another basis - and it's not Allen's white shirt.
Yet the conclusion that Zachary Allen received no special treatment is based on his "test scores and training records" for becoming a firefighter. It says nothing to that crash on Macon Road -- and Allen resigned from the fire department one day after the collision. So he actually left too quickly for a cover-up to be started.
Documents filed after the November 2006 wreck indicate Zachary Allen tested negative for drugs, when he actually tested positive. Oops, I'm sorry -- the mayor's statement on the investigation first calls it a "non-negative drug test." I guess there are times when you're not supposed to say positive words about someone.
The final report indicates the mistaken drug report was a paperwork error, which was resolved after someone made an anonymous phone call to City Manager Isaiah Hugley in December 2006. In a way, this is refreshing - as someone tipped off a city official first, instead of a blogger.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the police investigation involves a Deputy Fire Chief. David Starling denied writing a recommendation letter, when Zachary Allen applied to work with the LaGrange Fire Department. But it turns out two Columbus Fire Department secretaries wrote and initialed the letter for Starling.
I didn't realize Allen looked that attractive to the ladies....
Mayor Wetherington says Deputy Fire Chief David Starling underwent a polygraph test in mid-April about that letter of recommendation - and the examiner concluded Starling "was deceptive in his answers." What IS the legal definition of "recommend," anyway?
But the police report notes it's not unethical for Fire Department personnel to write letters of recommendation. So David Starling isn't even being reprimanded by Mayor Wetherington -- but Starling is hoping no one tries to drag him onto that Fox show "Moment of Truth."
The only person who seems to be directly punished for the Zachary Allen case is a Fire Department investigator. Monica Carstarphen presumed Allen's drug test was negative. For doing that, she's received a "Letter of Counseling." What does that mean - that she can share her story with troubled middle school students?
Yet Mayor Wetherington chose to issue what he called a "very serious" letter of reprimand to Fire Chief Jeff Meyer. He says there were "many mistakes made during this incident...." But based on the mayor's statement, none of those mistakes can be pinned on the chief. There doesn't even seem to be a Karl Rove here, to conspire a cover-up.
The mayor is leaving it to the Fire Chief to discipline members of his own staff. So Jeff Meyer may order David Starling to "fall on the sword" for the Zachary Allen case - or perhaps a Captain who let Allen drive a vehicle he wasn't trained in driving. That doesn't seem to stop some of those salespeople, who try to sell cars.
It turns out the reprimand for the Fire Chief goes beyond the Zachary Allen case. The mayor's letter reveals Mary Simonton was interviewed for a Deputy Chief position in a parking lot -- and while Chief Jeff Meyer was smoking. At least he didn't conduct the interview for a government job in some smoke-filled room....
Mayor Wetherington declares it "inappropriate" for the Fire Chief to be smoking during a job interview, because it showed "a disregard for Captain Simonton." I can't wait to quote the mayor at my next poker night -- and see if the cigarette puffers around my table have a response I can write in a G-rated blog.
THE BIG BLOG QUESTION will stop right here, and ask what you think about this. Is it appropriate for an employer to smoke, during a job interview? Should a boss be reprimanded if he does it? Does it show disregard for an employee? Or does it give someone in the Fire Department a taste of what he or she could face during an emergency in the middle of the night?
There's a third issue in the mayor's letter of reprimand, which admittedly is vague to me. Sergeant John Thomas apparently won a legal settlement from the city, because he didn't receive a job promotion in a proper way. The city had to "expend funds to make Sergeant Thomas whole." You simply don't call someone Johnny unless he specifically says you can.
The police investigation apparently did NOT get into the latest complaint against Fire Chief Jeff Meyer - that he offered an upset employee a job which didn't exist on the city payroll [18 Apr]. Perhaps it was the chief's first case of a "false alarm."
Mayor Wetherington's letter declares the Fire Department management's handling of policies is "entirely too lax." Yet the mayor told reporters he still has a "high level of confidence" in Chief Jeff Meyer. As long as he cracks the whip, and the whip isn't a gift from Marlboro....
The mayor admits he considered firing or demoting Fire Chief. But he concluded the Columbus Fire Department is "very knowledgeable in dealing with fires." That's nice to know - but the handling of personnel firestorms is something else.
There are many other questions we could ask about Mayor Wetherington's decision, and we still might if there's interest. But I'm admittedly surprised that Jeff Meyer escaped with only a reprimand. I suspect many people who voted for Wetherington are surprised as well. They wanted justice, not mercy -- forgetting his time as headmaster of a Christian school.
But as we suggested in April, this reprimand brings another issue into play. Will Columbus voters be less likely to vote for the one-percent sales tax in July, after seeing how Jeff Meyer and his aides were disciplined here? Will skeptics a new game of "cover-up" is under way - with the mayor covering the Fire Chief's, uh, you know? Instead of kicking that, uh, same place?
E-MAIL UPDATE: The message was titled, "That Kansas Coach..." This Kansas grad wondered which one....
Looks like he ate all those former Bama coaches that you mentioned and maybe a couple more from another conference!
OK, I think which one you mean -- since Kansas doesn't have a wrestling program, even for super-heavyweights.
Yes, Kansas head football coach Mark Mangino could be described as hefty. In fact, there were concerns about his health in the last year. But until the recent NCAA basketball program, there was little doubt he was the "big man on campus."
But there's a long summer ahead before college football season, so let's move on to other weekend news:
+ Who left a campaign sign for Russell County Commissioner Johnnie Robinson flat on the ground - at Fourth Street and Second Avenue in Columbus? Did someone decide against throwing it off the Oglethorpe Bridge, because that new dive team might find it?
+ WRBL showed Phenix City grade school students at Garrett-Harrison Stadium, for what was called a "wet fest." When Auburn has a water park and this is the best the Columbus area can do, the Chamber of Commerce's work still isn't done.
+ The Columbus Civic Center hosted an Aflac employee appreciation party in the morning, then turned around and held a Columbus Lions football game at night. I guess Dan Amos isn't making enough money yet to buy an N.F.L. franchise, and move it here.
+ Russell County School Superintendent Yvette Richardson said the high school baseball team will receive "clinics," in the wake of being placed on probation. Aw, c'mon -- do you really need a clinic in counting to 18 regular-season games?
+ Shaw High School opened the Georgia state baseball playoffs by sweeping Ola. Ola?!?! It seems more like adios to me....
(I had to go online to figure out where Ola High School is. It's a new school in the Ola community of Henry County -- but I couldn't find a good explanation for that name. You can't even blame it on that old Beatles song, "Obra-dee Obra-dah, life goes on.")
+ Instant Message to Yellawood's Jimmy Rain: You were kidding, right? I mean, when you talked about the Johnny Mack Brown Western Festival in Dothan -- and said the "good old-fashioned fun" included shootouts? There are some Columbus neighborhoods which might have a different opinion of that....
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